Basic Rights Oregon has TV ad campaign to win support for gay marriage

The state's largest gay rights group is running its second statewide television advertising campaign aimed at warming Oregon hearts and minds to same-sex marriage.

Basic Rights Oregon is in the second week of a three-week ad campaign on network and cable television stations that is expected to reach 750,000 Oregonians.

The group ran a similar campaign last summer and has been working more than two years to engage Oregonians on the issue of same-sex marriage through community meetings, neighborhood canvassing and house parties. Its goal is to pass an initiative that would overturn the state ban on gay marriage.

Basic Rights has no specific plans to launch an initiative campaign, said Jeana Frazzini, executive director, but the group has said in the past that it could act as soon as 2012.

"We've basically set for the rest of this year a goal of identifying 100,000 new supporters for the freedom to marry here in Oregon," she said.

The Oregon Family Council, a statewide Christian-based network that opposes same-sex marriage, doesn't want to fight another initiative battle over marriage, said spokesman Tim Nashif.

"But make no bones about it, we will," said Nashif, who led the council's fight to pass Measure 36, Oregon's constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, in 2004.

Basic Rights is "going at it the right way" by preparing residents to vote on overturning the ban, Nashif said.

If the group launches an initiative drive, he said, "we would be most grieved by the fact all of this money and all of these hard feelings and the rhetoric and all of the stuff we went through in 2004 is all going to be put back on the table."

Basic Rights is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on its biggest TV ad buy ever for the current campaign and also sending fliers to 200,000 homes across Oregon. The group would not say precisely how much it is spending.

The ads feature short clips of couples, both straight and gay, talking about why they support same-sex marriage. One ad features an Oregon couple named Val and Steve.

As soft guitar music plays, Val says, "Deciding to support gay and lesbian marriage was really not a political decision for us. It was really based on our values."

Steve then says, "In the end, it was talking to our daughters. They said to me, 'Dad, you've always taught us to treat others like you wanted to be treated.'"

Frazzini said ads aired last year combined with meetings and canvassing have brought more people into the gay marriage camp.

"What we found is the more folks are engaging in this conversation and really kind of considering this issue, the more support we are seeing," she said.

Nationally, support for gay marriage has been climbing over the last seven years. An ABC News/Washington Post poll last month showed support hit the majority milestone, 53 percent, up from 32 percent in 2004.

Frazzini said more and more people understand that gay couples are after the same thing as straight couples in marriage – "love, commitment, caring for each other in good times and bad."